The New Age of Public Relations

Prepared by Kevin HuangAugust, 2015

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What is Public Relations?

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What is Public Relations?

The PRSA defines public relations as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” 

Some people think Public Relations is about sending out press releases, strictly managing matters regarding media for business, simply making people or businesses look good, or spend 95% of their time writing.

PR is a lot of things.

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I think a Public Relations professional is one who assists clients identify points of distinction and strategically deliver key messages through custom campaigns. They generally have expertise in crisis communications/reputation management, media relations, media training, event planning & facilitation, corporate social responsibility/community relations, internet and social media marketing and other related tasks.

So here's my answer, as brief as I can get:

What does a Public Relations Professional do?

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Due to economic and technological changes, Public Relations (PR) has lost its meaning. Are you looking for press/media

relations, blog relations, or consumer relations?

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The PR/marketing industry has undergone a dynamic shift that requires a new set of skills and

a deeper understanding of the power of the Connected World.

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Today, we are experiencing new opportunities as social technology has uncovered expanded roles and

responsibilities for professionals. It’s critical that we, as a PR professional, develop a deep understanding of the

importance of social media and its overall role in bridging connections between online audiences.

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PR 1.0 PR 2.0 PR 3.0

PR is now a cross-platform communications action reliant upon traditional and digital PR strategies, as well as social engagement, content marketing, brand publishing, media relations, inbound content, SEO strategies and limitless creativity.

Public Relations has evolved

PR has been all about earned media – utilize reporters, as third party endorsers, to communicate a product’s or service’s message to potential customers.

PR 2.0 actually began with Web 1.0. The early internet had elements of social networking and limited consumer power. The consumer was now able to view company websites and in some instances contact them through e-mail, but this was still nothing like today.

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Public Relations goes more into depth

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Social media’s role in PR

to reach, collaborate and better communicate with bloggers/new influencers, media and consumer audiences directly.

to raise awareness, build relationships, create and maintain a positive image, and increase overall brand exposure.

focus on customized and more targeted communication to build stronger mutually beneficial relationships that lead to deeper engagement, resulting in loyalty and advocacy.

Social media changes the way we plan, work and develop communication, with a different mix of media, and ultimately how we deliver meaningful content and engage with the public to drive valuable outcomes for a business.

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Four reasons why you should be combining SEO, Social and PR strategies

1. High quality content helps you earn links.

2. PR relationships can help attract authority links.

3. Authority brand mentions or "implied links" will become more important as SEO advances.

4. Using PR outreach can amplify a social media campaign.

When creating a PR campaign the piece of content that you are sending out to media contacts has to be amazing. The title needs to instantly grab their attention and the body needs to suck the reader in.

Theses relationships with journalists, reporters, and editors can help you earn links from authoritative websites that Google loves. A few links from large authority websites hold far more weight than hundreds of spammy links that were built solely to attempt to manipulate the search rankings.

As mentions become more popular PR is going to come more into play. The more media outlets and websites that mention your brand, the more of an authority you will be viewed as by the search engines.

Sharing your content on social media helps to expose it to more people, which can also result in earning links, but using a PR approach can amplify your social reach significantly. Get industry partners and other influencers to also share your content on social media - when done right it can result in exponential social growth.

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4 Ways to use social media in Public Relations

1. Include Social Sharing With Press ReleasesIf you need to write a press release, find a way to support and extend the message via social sharing.

Keep in mind that journalists rely heavily on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to source and research stories. When you share your story socially, you are meeting them where they are instead of interrupting them in their inbox.

For example, a story about a charitable contribution would translate very well to video (building up your YouTube channel). Or you can share data via an infographic that fans can pin, tweet and share from your blog or Facebook.The marketing team at Halogen Software tries to make every story visual and social. The company released an industry report in June 2014 and added social components with a Twitter campaign, an infographic and a blog post.

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2. Create Social Campaigns Around Customer Case StudiesMost PR teams create customer case studies to highlight successes and build credibility. While some customer stories make a good write-up, most people aren’t willing to invest the time to read long-form articles. Instead of sharing the full case study on social media, pick out the key facts from the client’s success story and highlight those across the board.

Many stories are actually more powerful when told through the right social channel. For example, Microsoft used video to share a story about how their technology is making a difference in people’s lives.

Thanks to Microsoft technology, Sarah Churman was able to hear for the first time. The company knew showing instead of telling would elicit a stronger emotional response. They gave the story life by sharing a video of Sarah hearing her first sounds.

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3. Ask Executives to Publish on LinkedInWhen CEOs or other executives actively engage with professional colleagues and customers, they’re playing an important role in building trust with key stakeholders. Yet only a handful of CEOs are active on social platforms. It’s time to change that.

LinkedIn is a good place to start because it’s the leading social platform for professional networking. Since it now offers a publishing platform, you or your executives can share content quickly and know you’re reaching the right audience.

Instead of writing an op-ed for a newspaper or an article for an industry publication, use that content on LinkedIn. Sharing your company updates on LinkedIn is a much faster way to reach your audience than waiting for traditional media to publish your contribution.

You can either create content specifically for LinkedIn or republish from an existing blog or other source.

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4. Offer Expert Opinions in Real TimeAs industry-related stories break, social media offers the prime way for you to offer expert commentary and make an immediate impact on your audience. If you wait for a press release to make the rounds, you’ll likely miss your opportunity.

For example, when a government database is hacked or a major story about stolen credit card numbers breaks, security companies react swiftly on all social fronts. By helping others understand the situation and offering advice, they’re positioning themselves as experts, as well as drawing attention to their product or service.

Before you connect yourself with specific events in your industry, assess each opportunity as it arises and have a plan in place for when and how you will respond to certain situations.

In the case of breaking news, proceed with caution to ensure that you are adding value to the conversation and not being completely self-serving or trying to capitalize on a tragedy.

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If you’ve been relying on traditional public relations tactics, it’s time to breathe new life into your efforts. By focusing on a social approach, you’ll be able to communicate your messages directly with your stakeholders.

Plus, you’ll be better able to connect with the media and bloggers where they’re proactively looking for news and resources instead of spamming them with information (like press releases) they simply don’t want or can’t share immediately.

Time to embrace the new PR age

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More Success Stories

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Summer of sharing: share a coke

This is a campaign that only a brand like Coca Cola could even think about doing … It was globally applauded, everyone was talking about it, and among soft drink consumers, mainly Coke folks, there was a real feeling of excitement about getting a bottle with their own names on it (and/or their life partner’s in many cases!).

“This summer, Coke is swapping out three of its iconic logos on 20-oz. bottles for the 250 most popular first names among American teens and Millennials”

With this call, that was played worldwide, Coca Cola shared this experience with their consumers in one of the broadest communication campaigns ever to be launched . They got PR hits worldwide, millions of mentions and pictures shared in social media, etc. Hey , did you get your own bottle too? (I did and I still have it on top of my fireplace!)

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Google fights against Ebola

While governments around the world were unsuccessfully trying to make up their minds about the best approach, sitting around and debating and discussing about the most valid ways to combat Ebola …Google came up to the plate in November and its CEO announced it would pledge $2 for every dollar donated through its website. They set up a specific URL onetoday.google.com/fightebola to explain this original social action and invite people worldwide to contribute to this worthwhile, timely cause. When you plug “Google ebola campaign” into a search engine, you’ll get over 22 million results with posts, news, articles and mentions to this initiative that smacked squarely in the face of those governments from all over the world who seemed to be taking forever and even then still couldn’t make any decsion about how to best face this challenge. CSR campaigns are always great , but if they are launched at the perfect moment and with the most flattering circumstances — as was this case for Google —, they will become a huge boost for your brand.

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Burger King Proud Whopper

“We are all the same inside” was Burger King’s message during San Francisco’s Gay Pride Week in 2014. This ‘experience marketing’ action held in one of the main Bay Area Burger King’s invited people to try their “proud Whopper”. “What’s that?” lots of them quizzed… So when customers opened the rainbow color wrapper there was the message: “We are all the same inside”.

Due to its shocking message, this communication campaign ended up generating any number of impacts in the press and thousands and thousands of mentions in social networks. The goal was far surpassed: achieving a better reputation for their brand!

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Monty the Penguin

John Lewis has managed to make us all remember our childhood with: “Monty the penguin”. This campaign is not just about a cute video of a kid playing with his best friend, but it also has a wide range of elements which have combined to make it both so successful and viral: you can buy the music of the advert’s music and thanks to that gesture you will be helping WWF in protecting the home of 1,000’s ofAdéline penguins, you can buy the book that tells Monty and Sam’s story, you can have a 360º view of both friends’ life, and many other actions linked to this campaign that you can find in the web page specially created for the action.

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World’s toughest job

In 2012, we were witnesses to one of the most beautiful and touching campaigns of all times: The Best Job, a Procter & Gamble campaign, related with the London Olympic games in which they thanked the effort of the mothers from all over the world and their contribution to the success of our lives. They repeated a similar action this year with their video named : Thank you mom. This time it was American Greetings who wanted to highlight the importance of mothers’ jobs in our lives. 24 people applied for a very unattractive job ad (with what was a seemingly never-ending list of requirements , much longer than normal working hours, and being available to be called at any time by your boss, even at nights…). At the end, the interviewer unveils that what was supposed to be an “Operations Manager” job, is in fact motherhood. In a mere two days the video was viewed more than 2.8 million of times!!

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The ultimate goal of PR is to build “People Relations” and “Perfect Relation(ship)s” with your target

consumers!